When tidal erosion on Cnip beach uncovered a well-preserved wheelhouse complex, it presented a rare opportunity to shed new light on this architectural phenomenon. This title sets out the results of the excavations, placing them in the wider context of the British and European Iron Age.

Following Wheeler's excavations at Maiden Castle, the multivallate hillforts of Wessex came to be seen as responses to a specific form of warfare based around the massed use of slings. As part of the wider post-processual 'rethink' of the British Iron Age during the late 1980s and 1990s, this traditional 'military' interpretation of hillforts was increasingly subject to criticism. Apparent weaknesses in hillfort design were identified and many of the most distinctive features of these sites (depth of enclosure, complexity of entrance arrangements, etc) were reinterpreted as symbols of social isolation. Yet this 'pacification' of hillforts is in many ways as unsatisfactory as the traditional vision. Both camps have tended to view warfare as a detached, functional, and disembedded activity which can be analysed in terms of essentially timeless concepts of military efficiency. Consideration of the use of analogous structures in the ethnographic record suggests that, far from being mutually exclusive, the military and symbolic dimensions are both essential to a more nuanced understanding of the wider social role of hillforts in Britain and beyond.

The occurrence of human remains in Iron Age domestic contexts in southern England is well-attested and has been the subject of considerable recent debate. Less well known are the human remains from settlement contexts in other parts of Iron Age Britain. In Atlantic Scotland, human bodies and body parts are found consistently, if in small numbers, in Atlantic roundhouses, wheelhouses, and other settlement forms. Yet these have remained unsynthesised and individual assemblages have tended to be interpreted on a site-specific basis, if at all. Examination of the material as a corpus suggests a complex and evolving set of attitudes to the human body, its display, curation, and disposal, and it is improbable that any single interpretation (such as excarnation, retention of war trophies, or display of ancestral relics) will be sufficient. Although the specific practices remain diverse and essentially local, certain concerns appear common to wider areas, and some, for instance the special treatment accorded to the head, have resonances far beyond Iron Age Britain.

The loch-side settlement of Druim nan Dearcag has been shown by excavation to date to the
16th-17th centuries AD, when it formed part of a dispersed settlement pattern in north-west North
Uist. Elements of this settlement system were subsequently truncated by ridge-and-furrow cultivation
associated with the cleared township or 'baile' of Foshigarry. The site produced rare structural and
artefactual evidence for this period of Hebridean history and may help shed some light on the
development of settlement patterns, house types and land use in the late medieval and post-medieval
periods.

Excavations were carried out on the tidal islet settlement of Eilean Maleit, previously excavated by
Erskine Beveridge in the early part of this century, to test the hypothesis that the site represented a
wheelhouse built into an earlier Atlantic roundhouse or broch. It is clear from the re-excavation that
the wheelhouse was indeed set into an earlier massive-walled dry stone structure, probably an Atlantic
roundhouse but almost certainly not a classic broch tower. The denuded condition of this early
structure when the wheelhouse was built suggests that a significant period of time may have elapsed
between the occupation of the two structures. Publication of this work is sponsored by Historic
Scotland.

This paper considers the evidence for the abandonment of souterrains in that part of east central
Scotland characterized by Wainwright as 'southern Pictland'. The evidence suggests that most
souterrains here were deliberately destroyed, or at least infilled, and that none seems to have
outlasted the early third century AD. The process of destruction seems to have been associated with a
significant degree of ritual activity not previously noted. It is postulated that the evidence would
allow for a single episode of abandonment (a 'souterrain abandonment horizon'), in the late second
or early third century AD, which might be related to a major reorientation of social and political
structures, perhaps associated with changes in Roman frontier policy.

Two seasons of geophysical prospection (magnetic, resistance and ground-penetrating radar)
were conducted at the Iron Age oppidum of Le Castellan, Istres, Bouches-du-Rhône, in order to
determine the utility of these techniques for sites in this region. The survey revealed numerous
strong anomalies, of which many ran parallel or perpendicular to one another. These are the
sorts of responses one might expect from the remains of buried stone wall foundations; this
interpretation is supported by the presence, on the west side of the site, of exposed walls on the
same alignment as certain of the geophysical anomalies. Overall, the evidence suggests a
network of buried buildings and road-ways across the oppidum. One particularly substantial
building was identified towards the centre of the site, through the presence of a strong resistance
anomaly of distinctly rectilinear form. It appears to represent the remains of a buried stone
building with three rooms. In conclusion, the results provide strong encouragement for the further
application of geophysical survey in this region

In this article we assess the abilities of a new electromagnetic (EM) system, the CMD Mini-Explorer, for prospecting of archaeological features in Ireland and the UK. The Mini-Explorer is an EM probe which is primarily aimed at the environmental/geological prospecting market for the detection of pipes and geology. It has long been evident from the use of other EM devices that such an instrument might be suitable for shallow soil studies and applicable for archaeological prospecting. Of particular interest for the archaeological surveyor is the fact that the Mini-Explorer simultaneously obtains both quadrature (conductivity') and in-phase (relative to magnetic susceptibility') data from three depth levels. As the maximum depth range is probably about 1.5m, a comprehensive analysis of the subsoil within that range is possible. As with all EM devices the measurements require no contact with the ground, thereby negating the problem of high contact resistance that often besets earth resistance data during dry spells. The use of the CMD Mini-Explorer at a number of sites has demonstrated that it has the potential to detect a range of archaeological features and produces high-quality data that are comparable in quality to those obtained from standard earth resistance and magnetometer techniques. In theory the ability to measure two phenomena at three depths suggests that this type of instrument could reduce the number of poor outcomes that are the result of single measurement surveys. The high success rate reported here in the identification of buried archaeology using a multi-depth device that responds to the two most commonly mapped geophysical phenomena has implications for evaluation style surveys. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Recent radiocarbon dating of a skeleton from Balevullin, Tiree, excavated in the early twentieth century,
demonstrates that it dates to the Neolithic period, rather than the Iron Age as originally expected. Osteological
examination suggests that the individual was a young adult woman, exhibiting osteological deformities
consistent with vitamin D deficiency, most likely deriving from childhood rickets; an exceptionally early
identification of the disease in the UK with potentially significant social implications. Isotopic analysis supports
the osteological evidence for physiological stress in childhood and further suggests that the woman was most
probably local to the islands. Analysis of the surviving written archive reveals that the surviving skeleton was
one of several originally recovered from the site, making Balevullin an exceptionally rare example of a British
Neolithic inhumation cemetery.

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